How Women Are Using Television to Domesticate Globalization: A Case Study on the Reception and Consumption ofTelenovelasin Senegal

Abstract

This paper focuses on how Senegalese women receive and consume Latin-American-made telenovelas. Description and analysis of this phenomenon are based on data collected in the suburbs of Dakar during the first six months of the year 2002, by means of an ethnographic study which was designed to investigate how telenovelas might be playing a role in feminine identity dynamics. On the one hand, the results show that the reception of telenovelas occurs essentially inside the households, thus modifying the balance between public and private spheres. They are watched mainly by women and children who meet together at regular intervals, according to a synchronization pattern which is engrained in their daily routines. This domestication of people by telenovelas is backed up by a very efficient strategy of communication that makes use of three types of message—oral, visual, and musical—engraved in a sophisticated narrative structure. On the other hand, people domesticate television through a complex reception process which is both collective and active. At the end of it, women are able to intertwine some of the threads picked up in the telenovelas within their own daily social fabric to make things change, especially in the realm of gender relationships and parent-children relationships. Moreover, television appears to play a catalytic role in helping women to gain more autonomy in the economic field. In conclusion, telenovelas are attracting women because they help them find their way in a fast changing world.

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